1848.] Observations made on a Botanical Excursion. 389 



The buildings are very extensive, and though now ruinous, bear evidence 

 of great beauty in the architecture : light galleries supported by slender 

 columns, long cool arcades, screened squares and terraced walks, are the 

 principal features. The rooms open out into flat roofs, commanding 

 views of the long endless table-land on one side, and a sheer precipice 

 of 1000 feet on the other, with the Soane, the amphitheatre of hills, and 

 village of Akbarpore, below. 



This and Bidjegur, higher up the Soane, were some of the most 

 recently reduced forts, and this was further the last of those wrested 

 from Baber in 1542. Some of the rooms are still habitable, but the 

 greater part are ruinous and covered with climbers of both wild flowers, 

 and the naturalized garden plants of the adjoining shrubbery. The 

 Nyctanthes and Guettarda, with Vitex negundo, Hibiscus abelmoschus, 

 Abutilon indicum, Pkysalis, Justicia adhatoda and other Acanthacece, 

 and above all the little yellow-flowered Linaria ramossima, crawling 

 like the English L. cymbalaria over every ruined wall : all this is just 

 as we see the walls of our old English castles harbouring to the last the 

 plants their old masters fostered in the garden hard by. 



On the limestone walls several species of crustaceous Lichens abounded. 



In the old dark stables I observed the soil to be covered with a 

 copious most evanescent efflorescence, apparently of Nitrate Lime, like 

 soap-suds scattered about. 



I made Rotas Palace 1576 feet above the sea, or 1177 feet above the 

 village, so that this table-land is here only 50 feet higher than that I 

 had crossed on the Grand Trunk Road, before descending at the Dunwah 

 pass. Its mean temperature Mr. Davies informs me, is probably about 

 10° below that of the valley below, but, though so cool, not exempt 

 from agues after the rains. The extremes of temperature are less 

 marked up here than below, where the valley becomes excessively heated, 

 and where the hot wind sometimes lasts for a week, blowing in furious 

 gusts. 



The climate of the whole neighbourhood has changed materially ; and 

 the fall of rain, which has much diminished, consequently on felling 

 the forests ; even within 6 years the hail-storms are far less frequent 

 and violent. The air on the hills is highly electrical, owing no doubt 

 to the dryness of the atmosphere, and to this the frequent formation 

 of hail-storms may be due. 



3 F 



